Electric Vehicles EVs

Yes this has been covered in the vanilla car thread, go whine there.

I think the argument is that regenerative braking means EVs don't use their brakes much. Doesn't really cover all the other stuff you mentioned but if you bring that stuff up people act like you're the problem for pointing out these outstanding issues, when the problem is a society based on private car ownership or something.

I guess we're a way away from any real solution on that front though. For what it's worth I share your cynicism, but in the end so long as people feel like they "need" cars EVs are probably slightly better (unless the false sense of progress they engender blunts a hunger for real change which in the end leads us all to ruin)

EVs will do little to improve urban air quality, as most of the harmful particulates that cause cancer, Alzheimers, respiratory disease and cardiovascular disease come from the brakes and tyres.

Particulate emissions are only one category of harmful emissions. You've chosen a very funny way of saying "EVs completely eliminate harmful gaseous emissions such as NOx and carbon monoxide and sulphur dioxide and significantly reduce particulate emissions."

Interestingly it looks to me like the main reason tyre and brake wear have become such a significant proportion of emissions is that exhausts contain a lot less particulates than they did 20 years ago (graph on page 25).

https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/assets/documents/reports/cat09/1907101151_20190709_Non_Exhaust_Emissions_typeset_Final.pdf

(also that report seems to derive a lot of its numbers from some very speculative modelling and only small scale real world evidence)